Page 17 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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xxvi INTRODUCTION.
months of his return Newbery once more sailed for Tripoli,
on this occasion accompanied by Ralph Fitch, William
Leedes, and James Story.1 These four Englishmen,
following the same route as that taken by Newbery on
his former journey, reached Hormuz on September 5th,
1583, and were at once arrested and imprisoned by the
captain of Hormuz,2 on suspicion of being emissaries of
Dom Antonio, the pretender to the throne of Portugal.3
In October they were shipped to Goa, arriving there on
the 20th of November, and being again incarcerated.
However, through the good offices of the English Jesuit,
Father Thomas Stevens,4 Fitch and his companions were
soon released on bail, and settled to trade or other occupa­
tions in Goa. Being still, however, treated with suspicion
by the authorities, on April 5th, 1585, Fitch, Newbery and
Leedes made their escape from Portuguese territory, and
r portion of those travels synchronises with the earlier parts
succeeded in reaching the court of the “ Great Mogul,”
Akbar,5 at Fatehpur Sikri. Here Leedes remained in
Akbar’s service; but on September 28th, 1585, Newbery
i i
left for Lahore, intending to return by Persia to Aleppo or i Another reason I have for referring specially to Fitch's
Constantinople ;° while Fitch set out in a fleet of boats
1 Fitch’s narrative of this journey was first printed by Hakluyt
(Prijicipall Navigations, vol. ii, Pt. i), and was reprinted by Purchas
(Pilgrimes, vol. ii). It has recently been reproduced, with a wealth
of illustrative matter, by Mr. J. Horton Ryley, a member of this
Society, under the title of Ralph Fitch: England's Pioneer to India
and Burma (London, 1899).
3 Mathias de Albuquerque (see infra). By a strange error, Lin-
schoten says that the captain of Hormuz was then “ Don Gonsalo de
Meneses” (Hakluyt Soc. ed. of Linschoten, vol. ii, p. 160 ; and cf.
pp. 187, 202). Mathias de Albuquerque took over the office from
D. Gonsalo de Menezes in January, 1583 (see Couto, Dec. A', Liv. in,
cap. ix, and Liv. vi, cap. x).
3 Regarding whom see Hunter’s History of British India, vol. i,
pp. 211-212, and footnote.
4 Respecting this man see Dictionary of Natural Biography, s. v.f
and Ralph Fitch, pp. 211-213. i until he learnt of the relief of Malacca and the destruction of Johor.
6 In Hakluyt he is everywhere called “ Zelabdim Echebar,” the
former name being apparently a misprint for “Zelaledim” = Jaldluddfn.
‘ Leedes appears to have died in India ; while a mystery hangs
over the fate of Newbery (see Ralph Fitch, pp. 77, 100, 205).
!|
J
Ill
INTRODUCTION. xxvii
down the Jumna and Ganges to Bengal, whence he sailed J.
to Chittagong, and then on to Pegu, where he made a stay
of a year. Leaving Pegu on January 10th, 1588,1 Fitch
reached Malacca on February 8th. This was the terminus I V
of his travels, and his stay in Malacca was very brief ! 1 n
Setting sail again on March 29th, 1588, Fitch returned by • {■
Pegu to Bengal, whence he took ship to Cochin, reaching rrt;
that port on March 22nd, 1589, and staying there until
November 2nd, when he left for Goa. At Goa his stay iiy
was, for good reasons, a very short one, and he had soon
sailed for Chaul, Hormuz and Basra, whence he returned
by the usual route to Aleppo, and so back to England, ! t v
arriving there on April 29th, 1591. !•
I have given the above summary of Ralph Fitch’s
travels for two reasons. The first is : that the latter ; I
of Teixcira’s voyages and wanderings in the East. In
fact, Fitch and Teixcira were probably at Goa at the same I
time, in 1589. Neither, however, mentions the other. ' ::
travels is to emphasise the audacity displayed by him in
visiting such Portuguese settlements as Malacca and
Cochin (where he stayed over seven months), and returning ■;
to Goa and Hormuz (where he had to wait fifty days -
for a passage to Basra), after having escaped from Goa
while still a suspect. That he ran considerable risks,
the following extracts from Portuguese official documents
show. On February 25th, 1585, the King of Spain wrote2
1 Fitch does not mention the year of his departure from Pegu and
his arrival at Malacca ; but it must have been 15SS, since, as we have
seen above (p. vii), during a great part of 1587 Malacca was enduring \ i? :
the horrors of famine. Probably Fitch prolonged his stay in Pegu
1 . .
3 I translate what follows from a copy (the only one extant ?) of a « r. .
royal letter contained in British Museum Addit. MS. 20,861 (tomo 1
of Collec^am de Ordens da India, No. 5). This letter does not appear \
in the Archivo Porluguez- Oriental.
i